Robert Browning - Delphi Poets Series

by Robert Browning

  Base with base to knit strength more intensely: so, arm folded arm

  O’er the chest whose slow heavings subsided.

  XI

  What spell or what charm,

  (For awhile there was trouble within me), what next should I urge

  To sustain him where song had restored him? — Song filled to the verge

  His cup with the wine of this life, pressing all that it yields

  Of mere fruitage, the strength and the beauty: beyond, on what fields,

  Glean a vintage more potent and perfect to brighten the eye

  And bring blood to the lip, and commend them the cup they put by?

  He saith, “It is good”; still he drinks not: he lets me praise life,

  Gives assent, yet would die for his own part.

  XII

  Then fancies grew rife

  Which had come long ago on the pasture, when round me the sheep

  Fed in silence — above, the one eagle wheeled slow as in sleep;

  And I lay in my hollow and mused on the world that might lie

  ‘Neath his ken, though I saw but the strip ‘twixt the hill and the sky:

  And I laughed — ”Since my days are ordained to be passed with my flocks

  Let me people at least, with my fancies, the plains and the rocks,

  Dream the life I am never to mix with, and image the show

  Of mankind as they live in those fashions I hardly shall know!

  Schemes of life, its best rules and right uses, the courage that gains,

  And the prudence that keeps what men strive for.” And now these old trains

  Of vague thought came again; I grew surer; so, once more the string

  Of my harp made response to my spirit, as thus —

  XIII

  “Yea, my King,”

  I began — ”thou dost well in rejecting mere comforts that spring

  From the mere mortal life held in common by man and by brute:

  In our flesh grows the branch of this life, in our soul it bears fruit.

  Thou hast marked the slow rise of the tree, — how its stem trembled first

  Till it passed the kid’s lip, the stag’s antler; then safely outburst

  The fan-branches all round; and thou mindest when these too, in turn,

  Broke a-bloom and the palm-tree seemed perfect: yet more was to learn,

  E’en the good that comes in with the palm-fruit. Our dates shall we slight,

  When their juice brings a cure for all sorrow? or care for the plight

  Of the palm’s self whose slow growth produced them? Not so! stem and branch

  Shall decay, nor be known in their place, while the palm-wine shall staunch

  Every wound of man’s spirit in winter. I pour thee such wine.

  Leave the flesh to the fate it was fit for! the spirit be thine!

  By the spirit, when age shall o’ercome thee, thou still shalt enjoy

  More indeed, than at first when inconscious, the life of a boy.

  Crush that life, and behold its wine running! Each deed thou hast done

  Dies, revives, goes to work in the world; until e’en as the sun

  Looking down on the earth though clouds spoil him, though tempests efface,

  Can find nothing his own deed produced not, must everywhere trace

  The results of his past summer-prime, — so, each ray of thy will,

  Every flash of thy passion and prowess, long over, shall thrill

  Thy whole people, the countless, with ardour, till they too give forth

  A like cheer to their sons, who in turn, fill the South and the North

  With the radiance thy deed was the germ of. Carouse in the past!

  But the license of age has its limit; thou diest at last:

  As the lion when age dims his eyeball, the rose at her height,

  So with man — so his power and his beauty forever take flight.

  No! Again a long draught of my soul-wine! Look forth o’er the years!

  Thou hast done now with eyes for the actual; begin with the seer’s!

  Is Saul dead? In the depth of the vale make his tomb — bid arise

  A gray mountain of marble heaped four-square, till, built to the skies,

  Let it mark where the great First King slumbers: whose fame would ye know?

  Up and above see the rock’s naked face, where the record shall go

  In great characters cut by the scribe, — Such was Saul, so he did;

  With the sages directing the work, by the populace chid, —

  For not half, they’ll affirm, is comprised there! Which fault to amend,

  In the grove with his kind grows the cedar, whereon they shall spend

  (See, in tablets ‘tis level before them) their praise, and record

  With the gold of the graver, Saul’s story, — the statesman’s great word

  Side by side with the poet’s sweet comment. The river’s a-wave

  With smooth paper-reeds grazing each other when prophet-winds rave:

  So the pen gives unborn generations their due and their part

  In thy being! Then, first of the mighty, thank God that thou art!”

  XIV

  And behold while I sang . . . but O thou who didst grant me that day,

  And before it not seldom hast granted thy help to essay,

  Carry on and complete an adventure, — my shield and my sword

  In that act where my soul was thy servant, thy word was my word, —

  Still be with me, who then at the summit of human endeavour

  And scaling the highest, man’s thought could, gazed hopeless as ever

  On the new stretch of heaven above me — till, mighty to save,

  Just one lift of thy hand cleared that distance — God’s throne from man’s grave!

  Let me tell out my tale to its ending — my voice to my heart

  Which can scarce dare believe in what marvels last night I took part,

  As this morning I gather the fragments, alone with my sheep,

  And still fear lest the terrible glory evanish like sleep!

  For I wake in the gray dewy covert, while Hebron upheaves

  The dawn struggling with night on his shoulder, and Kidron retrieves

  Slow the damage of yesterday’s sunshine.

  XV

  I say then, — my song

  While I sang thus, assuring the monarch, and ever more strong

  Made a proffer of good to console him — he slowly resumed

  His old motions and habitudes kingly. The right hand replumed

  His black locks to their wonted composure, adjusted the swathes

  Of his turban, and see — the huge sweat that his countenance bathes,

  He wipes off with the robe; and he girds now his loins as of yore,

  And feels slow for the armlets of price, with the clasp set before.

  He is Saul, ye remember in glory, — ere error had bent

  The broad brow from the daily communion; and still, though much spent

  Be the life and the bearing that front you, the same, God did choose,

  To receive what a man may waste, desecrate, never quite lose.

  So sank he along by the tent-prop till, stayed by the pile

  Of his armour and war-cloak and garments, he leaned there awhile,

  And sat out my singing, — one arm round the tent-prop, to raise

  His bent head, and the other hung slack — till I touched on the praise

  I foresaw from all men in all time, to the man patient there;

  And thus ended, the harp falling forward. Then first I was ‘ware

  That he sat, as I say, with my head just above his vast knees

  Which were thrust out on each side around me, like oak roots which please

  To encircle a lamb when it slumbers. I looked up to know

  If the best I could do had brought solace: he spoke not, but slow

  Lifted up the hand slack at his side, till he lai
d it with care

  Soft and grave, but in mild settled will, on my brow: through my hair

  The large fingers were pushed, and he bent back my head, with kind power —

  All my face back, intent to peruse it, as men do a flower.

  Thus held he me there with his great eyes that scrutinized mine —

  And oh, all my heart how it loved him! but where was the sign?

  I yearned — ”could I help thee, my father, inventing a bliss,

  I would add, to that life of the past, both the future and this;

  I would give thee new life altogether, as good, ages hence,

  As this moment, — had love but the warrant, love’s heart to dispense!”

  XVI

  Then the truth came upon me. No harp more — no song more! outbroke —

  XVII

  “I have gone the whole round of creation: I saw and I spoke:

  I, a work of God’s hand for that purpose received in my brain

  And pronounced on the rest of his hand-work — returned him again

  His creation’s approval or censure: I spoke as I saw:

  I report, as a man may of God’s work — all’s love, yet all’s law.

  Now I lay down the judgeship he lent me. Each faculty tasked

  To perceive him, has gained an abyss, where a dewdrop was asked.

  Have I knowledge? confounded it shrivels at Wisdom laid bare.

  Have I forethought? how purblind, how blank to the Infinite Care!

  Do I task any faculty highest, to image success?

  I but open my eyes, — and perfection, no more and no less,

  In the kind I imagined, full-fronts me, and God is seen God

  In the star, in the stone, in the flesh, in the soul and the clod.

  And thus looking within and around me, I ever renew

  (With that stoop of the soul which in bending upraises it too)

  The submission of man’s nothing-perfect to God’s all-complete,

  As by each new obeisance in spirit, I climb to his feet.

  Yet with all this abounding experience, this deity known,

  I shall dare to discover some province, some gift of my own.

  There’s a faculty pleasant to exercise, hard to hoodwink,

  I am fain to keep still in abeyance, (I laugh as I think)

  Lest, insisting to claim and parade in it, wot ye, I worst

  E’en the Giver in one gift. — Behold, I could love if I durst!

  But I sink the pretension as fearing a man may o’ertake

  God’s own speed in the one way of love: I abstain for love’s sake.

  — What, my soul? see thus far and no farther? when doors great and small,

  Nine-and-ninety flew ope at our touch, should the hundreth appal?

  In the least things have faith, yet distrust in the greatest of all?

  Do I find love so full in my nature, God’s ultimate gift,

  That I doubt his own love can compete with it? Here, the parts shift?

  Here, the creature surpass the Creator, — the end, what Began?

  Would I fain in my impotent yearning do all for this man,

  And dare doubt he alone shall not help him, who yet alone can?

  Would it ever have entered my mind, the bare will, much less power,

  To bestow on this Saul what I sang of, the marvellous dower

  Of the life he was gifted and filled with? to make such a soul,

  Such a body, and then such an earth for insphering the whole?

  And doth it not enter my mind (as my warm tears attest)

  These good things being given, to go on, and give one more, the best?

  Ay, to save and redeem and restore him, maintain at the height

  Thus perfection, — succeed with life’s dayspring, death’s minute of night?

  Interpose at the difficult minute, snatch Saul the mistake,

  Saul the failure, the ruin he seems now — and bid him awake

  From the dream, the probation, the prelude, to find himself

  Clear and safe in new light and new life, — a new harmony yet

  To be run, and continued, and ended — who knows? — or endure!

  The man taught enough by life’s dream, of the rest to make sure;

  By the pain-throb, triumphantly winning intensified bliss,

  And the next world’s reward and repose, by the struggles in this.

  XVIII

  “I believe it! ‘Tis Thou, God, that givest, ‘tis I who receive:

  In the first is the last, in thy will is my power to believe.

  All ‘s one gift: thou canst grant it moreover, as prompt to my prayer

  As I breathe out this breath, as I open these arms to the air.

  From thy will stream the worlds, life and nature, thy dread Sabaoth:

  I will? — the mere atoms despise me! Why am I not loth

  To look that, even that in the face too? Why is it I dare

  Think but lightly of such impuissance? What stops my despair?

  This; — ’tis not what man Does which exalts him, but what man Would do!

  See the King — I would help him but cannot, the wishes fall through.

  Could I wrestle to raise him from sorrow, grow poor to enrich,

  To fill up his life, starve my own out, I would — knowing which,

  I know that my service is perfect. Oh, speak through me now!

  Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst thou — so wilt thou!

  So shall crown thee the topmost, ineffablest, uttermost crown —

  And thy love fill infinitude wholly, nor leave up nor down

  One spot for the creature to stand in! It is by no breath,

  Turn of eye, wave of hand, that salvation joins issue with death!

  As thy Love is discovered almighty, almighty be proved

  Thy power, that exists with and for it, of being Beloved!

  He who did most, shall bear most; the strongest shall stand the most weak.

  ‘Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for! my flesh, that I seek

  In the Godhead! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it shall be

  A Face like my face that receives thee; a Man like to me,

  Thou shalt love and be loved by, forever: a Hand like this hand

  Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee! See the Christ stand!”

  XIX

  I know not too well how I found my way home in the night.

  There were witnesses, cohorts about me, to left and to right,

  Angels, powers, the unuttered, unseen, the alive, the aware:

  I repressed, I got through them as hardly, as strugglingly there,

  As a runner beset by the populace famished for news —

  Life or death. The whole earth was awakened, hell loosed with her crews;

  And the stars of night beat with emotion, and tingled and shot

  Out in fire the strong pain of pent knowledge: but I fainted not,

  For the Hand still impelled me at once and supported, suppressed

  All the tumult, and quenched it with quiet, and holy behest,

  Till the rapture was shut in itself, and the earth sank to rest.

  Anon at the dawn, all that trouble had withered from earth —

  Not so much, but I saw it die out in the day’s tender birth;

  In the gathered intensity brought to the grey of the hills;

  In the shuddering forests’ held breath; in the sudden wind-thrills;

  In the startled wild beasts that bore off, each with eye sidling still

  Though averted with wonder and dread; in the birds stiff and chill

  That rose heavily, as I approached them, made stupid with awe:

  E’en the serpent that slid away silent, — he felt the new law.

  The same stared in the white humid faces upturned by the flowers;

  The same worked in the heart of the cedar and moved the vine-bowers:

  And the little brooks witnessing murmu
red, persistent and low,

  With their obstinate, all but hushed voices —

  “E’en so, it is so!”

  De Gustibus —

  I.

  YOUR ghost will walk, you lover of trees,

  (If our loves remain)

  In an English lane,

  By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.

  Hark, those two in the hazel coppice —

  A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,

  Making love, say, —

  The happier they!

  Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,

  And let them pass, as they will too soon,

  With the bean-flowers’ boon,

  And the blackbird’s tune,

  And May, and June!

  II.

  What I love best in all the world

  Is a castle, precipice-encurled,

  In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine

  Or look for me, old fellow of mine,

  (If I get my head from out the mouth

  O’ the grave, and loose my spirit’s bands,

  And come again to the land of lands) —

  In a sea-side house to the farther South,

  Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,

  And one sharp tree — ’tis a cypress — stands,

  By the many hundred years red-rusted,

  Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o’ercrusted,

  My sentinel to guard the sands

  To the water’s edge. For, what expands

  Before the house, but the great opaque

  Blue breadth of sea without a break?

  While, in the house, for ever crumbles

  Some fragment of the frescoed walls,

  From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.

  A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles

  Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,

  And says there’s news to-day — the king

  Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,

  Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:

  — She hopes they have not caught the felons.

  Italy, my Italy!

  Queen Mary’s saying serves for me —

  (When fortune’s malice

  Lost her, Calais)

  Open my heart and you will see

  Graved inside of it, “Italy.”

  Such lovers old are I and she:

  So it always was, so it still shall be!

  Women And Roses

  I.

  I DREAM of a red-rose tree.

  And which of its roses three

  Is the dearest rose to me?

  II.

  Round and round, like a dance of snow

  In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go